IBM Watson Artificial Intelligence Xprize -Using AI in new ways to solve the World's biggest problems #Gsummit At the Singularity University Global Summit 2016, Nextbigfuture interviewed Amir Banifatemi who is managing the IBM Watson AI XPrize. Amir Banifatemi is a founder and managing partner at K5 Ventures. He focuses on working with startups and growth-oriented companies on products and initiatives that could trigger significant breakthrough with strong economic and societal impact. He has a special emphasis on machine learning and predictive systems, IoT, knowledge sharing and crowdsourcing, Education, and digital health. The IBM Watson AI XPRIZE is a 5 million AI and cognitive computing competition challenging teams globally to develop and demonstrate how humans can collaborate with powerful AI technologies to tackle he world's grand challenges.

Scientists may have found an off switch for alcoholism. Targeting only specific neural pathways that are specialized just for alcohol consumption, researchers at the Scripps Research Institute were able completely eliminate compulsive alcohol consumption in mice populations, according to research published Wednesday in the Journal of Neuroscience. "It's like they forgot they were dependent," Olivier George, an assistant professor at Scripps and lead researcher on the study, said of the findings. "We can completely reverse alcohol dependence by targeting a network of neurons." When a person or mouse drinks alcohol, they develop neural reward pathways specifically for alcohol.

A total of 51 institutions submitted a Letter of Intent (LOI) to the Fund in Inaugural Competition 2. Of these, 30 were invited to submit a full proposal. Ultimately, 29 proposals were submitted, representing a total Fund request of 2.38 billion. The proposals underwent a multilevel peer review process that included an evaluation of scientific merit and strategic relevance by external experts, and merit assessment by expert review panels, based on three selection criteria. Each proposal was assigned to one of four review panels composed of leading Canadian and international experts. Subsequently, proposals underwent a strategic review by the selection board, which is composed of distinguished Canadian and international leaders.

DEDHAM, MA–(Marketwired – Sep 7, 2016) – Rage Frameworks, a provider of knowledge-based automation technology and services, today announced that a leading multinational financial services firm has selected its Artificial Intelligence platform (RAGE AI) to drive improved results for its investment customers by using artificial intelligence to discover signals captured in a wide variety of data sources with Rage's innovative deep learning capabilities. RAGE AI significantly extends the frontier of deep learning and machine intelligence technology as it incorporates proprietary linguistics-based machine learning innovations to understand market developments in the context of individual companies and interpret those signals as a human would. After demonstrating via historical back-testing that the Rage AI platform repeatedly delivered returns in excess of what the firm's quantitative team was able to produce, Rage's solution was integrated in order to drive significant lift in the returns generated for the firm's clients. In fact, Rage has repeatedly shown that its deep background in computational linguistics and Natural Language Understanding can systematically discover Alpha by forming assessments of a company's financial projections that effectively predict future performance for businesses such as Wal-Mart (attached), where Rage AI predicted an upward trend in stock price months in advance. The RAGE AI platform does this by continuously interpreting unstructured content from over 100,000 sources and translating it into valuable intelligence.

If you're experiencing a mental health issue, one of the people you probably least want to speak to about it is your employer. Disclosing depression or anxiety has long been seen as the last workplace taboo, for fear of repercussions. This is despite the existence of the Equality Act 2010, which protects employees with physical and mental disabilities from discrimination. But just over a third of workers with a mental health condition discuss it with their employer, according to a survey of 1,388 employees carried out by Willis PMI Group, one of the UK's largest providers of employee healthcare and risk management services. The research found that 30% of respondents were concerned that they wouldn't receive adequate support, 28% believed their employer wouldn't understand, and 23% feared that disclosing it would lead to management thinking less of them.

If Japan, home to the world's largest public debt, wanted to save a bundle, it would close the Bank of Japan. Auctioning off its giant neo-baroque headquarter buildings around the nation and pink-slipping roughly 4,900 full-time employees would cheer Moody's and Standard & Poor's and plug holes in the national balance sheet. That's not going to happen, of course. But imagine if the BOJ had closed shop 17 years ago, right after it first cut interest rates to zero, and turned its function over to a computer program. Would the artificial-intelligence version of the BOJ be any closer to 2 percent inflation than the well-compensated humans occupying its buildings?

It must have seemed like a revolutionary idea to diners of the 1920s -- people on roller skates delivering food straight to their driver's side window. Suddenly, the food that families were used to eating around a dinner table now arrived on trays or in bags, ready to be eaten on the go. Little did they know fast food was on the brink of explosion. Nearly 100 years later, restaurants are on the brink of another massive change: robot automation. The best estimates find that up to 50% of jobs could be automated by the late 2030s, with restaurant workers among the most vulnerable to displacement.

HBO has released the official marketing art for its upcoming sci-fi drama called "Westworld," which features an android "host" clinging on to a round beam with the show's double "W" logo on the background. It carries the new tagline "Every Hero Has a Code," and Entertainment Weekly reported that it's because the protagonists of this updated version of Michael Crichton's 1973 film are actually robots, while the humans who go to the Western theme park seem to be devoid of morality. The new trailer released by the network shows how the robotic "hosts" deal with humans' deception and shocking indulgences. The trailer shows glimpses of how humans run amok in Westworld, with violent shootings, sex scenes, a milk-drinking cowboy with holes in a body and several dead bodies scattered all over the street. Evan Rachel Wood's protagonist Dolores Abernathy seems to be right smack at the middle of the controversies hounding the theme park, but she voices over in the trailer: "Sometimes I feel like the world out there is calling me." Dolores is deemed as an anomaly in the world created by Anthony Hopkins' Dr. Robert Ford, and the trailer ends with her questioning him if they are friends.

In H. G. Wells's classic The War of the Worlds, the narrator pauses a moment to rue the fact that he didn't react sooner to the arrival of an "intelligence greater than man's"--in his case, Martians landing on earth. Comparing himself to a comfortable dodo in its nest, he imagined those ill-fated birds also dithering as hungry sailors invaded their island: "We will peck them to death tomorrow, my dear." As intelligent technologies take over more and more of the decision-making territory once occupied by humans, are you taking any action? Are you sufficiently aware of the signs that you should? To help you get the head start you may need, here are the signs that it's time to fly the nest.

Whether they are assisting your doctor in surgery, driving your car, analyzing crime patterns, or cleaning and providing the security system for your home, artificial intelligence (AI) will play a big role in urban living in by 2030. But to maximize the benefits of an AI-wired city tomorrow, expert and the public need to have a frank conversation today, according to the first report from Stanford University's 100-year study on AI, which was released last week. "As a society, we are now at a crucial juncture in determining how to deploy AI-based technologies in ways that promote, not hinder, democratic values such as freedom, equality, and transparency," the panel states in its report, which analyzes the role AI will play in the typical North American city in 2030, focusing on eight domains: transportation, home robots, healthcare, education, entertainment, low-resource communities, public safety and security, and employment and the workplace. "Policies should be evaluated as to whether they foster democratic values and equitable sharing of AI's benefits, or concentrate power and benefits in the hands of a fortunate few." The report outlines not only the ways AI could potentially be used throughout everyday life, but also how public opinion surrounding the implementation of AI has changed, and will continue to.